And as I walked down the hallway, Amanda's unsteady hand locked in mine, I could feel the detec tive's eyes on my back.
24
I was dialing the number before I even left the station house. He picked up right away, his voice not even at tempting to hide the boredom that had no doubt settled in over the past several months. Though I still harbored some guilt over what had happened, every time we spoke he'd forbid me to show any pity, either for myself or for him. To Curt Sheffield, being wounded in the line of duty was something to be proud of. He'd never wanted to be anything but a cop-and he was a damn good one at that-and he wasn't going to let some pissant reporter wallow in a pint over some spilt blood.
'Officer Sheffield,' he said, practically moaning.
Curt had taken a bullet in the leg last year while helping me investigate a series of child kidnappings. The slug had nicked an artery, and it took a few surgeries to repair the wound. He'd probably never run in the
Olympics, but while he wouldn't accept anyone's pity he had told me on several occasions the injury had done wonders for his sex life. Guess chicks really do dig scars. I'd have to ask Amanda if that's why she was still with me.
'Hey, man, has your ass spread at all today?'
'S'up, Henry? Matter of fact I've been doing butt blasts at my desk. Docs won't let me go to the gym, but
I think it's a trick to get me to keep coming in so they can charge my insurance company. I swear my ass looks like the victim of an attack of cottage cheese.'
'I don't want to think about anything involving your butt. What do you say to a drink after work? On me.'
'I don't know man, I feel like I gotta lay low a little bit. Last time I brought you in here I caught hell from the chief of the department. You don't have a lot of friends around here these days, especially considering what's going on with your pops. At least you can be happy you got the deep end of the Parker gene pool.'
'I'll let that one slide. No work talk,' I said. 'Just conversation. All I ask. Okay, maybe one or two ques tions, but that's it.'
Curt went silent, but I could tell he was checking his watch. Sitting behind the desk for Curt was like keeping a racehorse stalled behind the starting gate. He was born to walk the streets, not type up reports. That's likely why I felt the most guilt; it was one less great cop protecting the city.
'Gimme one hour. Mixins.' Mixins was a cheesy singles bar primarily frequented by law and finance professionals who felt eight-dollar beers and weak cosmos were part of the mating ritual. The bar had undergone a total renovation over the last few years, mainly due to its predilection to serving underage girls.
A friend of a friend who used to drink there said the waitstaff would grossly undercharge young women, naturally in the hopes of luring free-spending men to the bar. Soon enough the cops caught on. Though rumor had it they didn't so much as catch on, but an off-duty detective saw a group of girls walk directly to the bar once after finishing class on Friday.
The bar had been shut down, but underwent a classic change in management, and now you'd be hard pressed to find someone holding a glass who didn't take home close to six figures. Neither Curt nor I pulled in anywhere in the universe of that salary, but Curt enjoyed it because, in his words, finance girls were workahol ics in every aspect of their lives. They kept their minds and their bodies sharp, and even though he seemed to always be in a serious relationship-sometimes several at once-he enjoyed having nice views at the bar. When
I asked him about it, his answer was simply that I wasn't pretty enough to hold his attention through more than one round of drinks.
I got to the bar before he did, took a seat and ordered a Brooklyn Lager. The bartender, a tall, rail-thin guy wearing a tight black T-shirt that ended right above his veiny pelvic area, served it to me then recommenced putting his elbows on the table and looking tortured.
The stools by the bar were never full here. It wasn't the kind of place one went to for a quiet drink.
A few months ago I'd gone through a rough personal patch. When Amanda and I were separated for a while.
Being apart from her led me to drink too much and seek out my own solitude. Losing a part of your life can be the most accurate barometer of what matters most. If you love something, being apart from it will haunt you.
If it doesn't, it can't have mattered all that much to begin with.
Being apart from Amanda was a miserable experi ence. I slept at my desk at the Gazette. My personal hygiene fell a rung below your average wino's. I wondered if I was simply the kind of guy who always needed to be in a relationship. Before Amanda, I'd been with my previous girlfriend, Mya, for several years. We also ended badly, and after suffering brutal injuries at the hands of a maniac, she seemed fully recovered, her life back on track. I was happy with Amanda, and I knew the difference between a good and a bad relation ship. Learning it had nearly killed me, but it was worth it.
After waiting fifteen minutes and downing half my beer, Curt strode into the bar. He was tall, black, in great shape, though his recent sedentary work life had softened the edges just a bit. He was wearing a dark shirt made of some shiny fabric. Certainly not what he wore on the job, unless the NYPD was far more fashionable than I'd thought.
Though his posture was perfect and he betrayed no sense of pain, there was still a slight limp evident in Curt's walk. I remembered seeing him lying there in a pool of blood, holding back the pain, unwilling to let anything get over on him. It was as though he was disgusted at himself for showing weakness, taking the maxim 'never let them see you bleed' quite literally. If he was limping at all, he was probably in more pain and discomfort than he let on.
We shook hands, and Curt ordered a beer. The bar tender poured it from the tap, eyeing Curt while letting the foam pour over, a thin smile on his thin lips. Once he'd set the glass down and moved away, I said to Curt,
'Now batting for the other team…'
'Don't even start, Henry.'
'What? That's a compliment. Any man who can attract players from both dugouts is doing something right. Besides, wearing that shirt, I wouldn't be sur prised if a few new dugouts spring up.'
'You know, Parker, I don't even know what the hell you're talking about sometimes.' Curt sipped his beer.
'How's the leg?' I asked, slightly apprehensive. It would have been easier to ignore it, to pretend he'd never been shot and there was nothing holding him back. It would have been easier to sit here, drink and carry on, pretend he wasn't limping.
'It's getting better,' he said. 'Takes a while for the muscle strength to build up, since they had to slice through some muscle to repair the damage to the artery.'
Just hearing this made me wince. 'Does it hurt?'
'When it's cold out, yeah. Gets a little stiff on me.
Plus, it's a little numb by my toes, on account of them having to go through some nerves, too. Docs aren't sure that'll ever come back. Not a big deal, though.'
I wanted to scream at him and ask how that could not be a big deal, but I supposed if you took a bullet in an artery and that was the worst-case scenario, you tended to think on the bright side of things.
'Tell you one thing,' Curt continued, 'I'm going to have to start wearing gloves, they got me filling out so many forms. Feel like I'm a supporting cast member on The Office or something. The black dude who stands in the corner with paper cuts on every finger.
How's Amanda?'
'She's doing well,' I said. 'Been a huge help on this thing with my dad. Without her he'd probably still be sitting in an Oregon prison claiming not to be James Parker.'
'She's a good one, my man. Glad you finally made amends for all that crap you pulled breaking up with her.'
